5. Actions to be taken by EANPC members

This Memorandum has been unable to keep the main related factors of productivity development in separate, watertight compartments. Nor would such an approach, even were it to have been possible, desirable: for productivity development is holistic, driven by competition and facilitated by the factors enumerated; and without productivity development, there can be no value creation and no new and sustainable jobs.

It is the task of the EANPC members to deliver the message of the Memorandum 2005 in their own countries. They have to take into account that the main stakeholders have different views on productivity. These differences can be explained from the effects productivity can have on different levels of society. What is good on the national level may be bad on the sectoral or individual level. Policy makers, labour unions, employers’ organisations and SMEs all see distinct benefits with regard to productivity growth. The negative effects of productivity may be mitigated by policy makers, employers’ organisations and labour unions by making the workforce more flexible and better educated. The EANPC can play an important role in facilitating these institutions. EANPC member organisations contribute, at different times and in different ways through government initiatives, to the development of economic growth, helping to raise income and increase economic and social resources which can be invested for the general development of society.

As experts in the field of productivity and economic development, member organisations can, each in its own country, offer public institutions, stakeholder organisations and enterprises support within the framework of a ‘high road’ to economic policy and productivity policy which emphasises the quality and innovation of the outputs and processes, rather than just cost-cutting on the side of the inputs. This support consists of:

1. Through the close linkage between innovation and the development of productivity and economic growth, EANPC member organisations play an important role in the innovation process. In particular, they inform SMEs of the opportunities and risks relating to product and process innovation and help them in the design of innovation processes. They also contribute to enhanced transfer of know-how between research and enterprises and to defining the goals for the state’s innovation and technology policy.
2. EANPC member organisations contribute both on the level of their national economies as well as that of the individual enterprise to reducing competitive inequalities through actions to empower small and medium-sized companies (SMEs). Thus, they make their knowledge of technological progress, managerial concepts, learning, etc. available to SMEs. As partners of state-supported programmes for SMEs, they provide help for self-help. In this way they can optimise the search and information behaviour of SMEs as a precondition for corporate decision-making. Moreover, in various business areas they organise and accompany co-operation between enterprises and in this way contribute to SMEs’ economies of scale.
3. Furthermore the EANPC represents in this respect one important network for transferring know-how and information to and among enterprises, countries and international organisations. Different countries have had different experiences with organisational processes and their design at the enterprise and sectoral levels. It is important to collect, exchange and evaluate these experiences for a variety of reasons: to avoid making the same mistakes twice; to describe good practice examples; to give advice on and inspiration to designing the processes; to make the competition which enterprises­particularly SMEs­are facing more transparent; and to contribute to ensuring that enterprises do not become locked into work and enterprise structures which cannot meet the current and emerging conditions of international competition.
4. In addition member organisations, through their consulting activities, help to bring in innovative and flexible company structures which contribute to the creation of additional employment opportunities; they also foster new fields of employment; by relating further training to company development, they enhance the continuing employability of individuals; they support sectoral and vocational mobility; and they support start-ups and the development of innovative products and services.
5. On account of the tasks assigned to them, EANPC member organisations serve as an effective link between economic policy and labour market policy measures at the level of the enterprise. Thus, through its members, the EANPC can contribute to the implementation at the national level of the employment policy goals of international organisations.
6. Improved working conditions, including safety and health at work and a healthy workforce, are very important for productivity development. The EANPC together with its members is striving, through information meetings and consulting, to bring out the economic significance­at both the macro and micro levels­of working conditions and to develop measures for introducing more approaches in this area in more companies and organisations. This is not just beneficial to the workforce, but is also a contribution to fair competition between enterprises and economies.
7. Moreover it is an important task for the EANPC and its member organisations is to show entrepreneurs, managers and corporate stakeholders that workforce skills and qualifications are an important element of productivity development and a prime factor of competitiveness. They must bring out that enhancing skills is not just a concern of basic and vocational training policy, but also an important constituent of productivity policy and that it hence needs to be embedded in an organisation conducive to change and supportive of learning. All productivity improvement programmes fail if the skills required for their implementation are not available.
8. On the national level it is particularly important for EANPC member organisations not only to become deeply involved in life-long learning processes, especially in vocational further training, but also to bring out the productivity aspects of skills’ learning and application which go beyond the boundaries of the individual enterprise. A key element in this respect is to strive for greater portability of qualifications and skills. For the more company-specific are the skills, the less they will be adaptable to the needs of other companies should the individual need or want to change to another enterprise.
9. Productivity measurement is an important tool to monitor productivity development. However research institutes in the EU which measure productivity use different standards and thus produce various productivity figures. The present chaos in existing productivity figures in the EU does not facilitate a sound policy on productivity development.
   The EANPC is the most suitable organisation to collect and present unambiguous EU productivity figures.